Bringing the Shovel Down - (Pitt Poetry) by Ross Gay (Paperback)

About the Book

Bringing the Shovel Down is a re-imagination of the violent mythologies of state and power. "These poems speak out of a global consciousness as well as an individual wisdom that is bright with pity, terror, and rage, and which asks the reader to realize that she is not alone--that the grief he carries is not just his own. Gay is a poet of conscience, who echoes Tomas Transtromer's 'We do not surrender. But want peace.'"--Jean Valentine

Book Synopsis

Bringing the Shovel Down maps the long and arduous process of being inculcated with the mythologies of state and power, the ramifications of that inculcation (largely, the loss of our humanity in the service of maintaining those mythologies), and finally, what it might mean, what it might provide us, if we were to transform those myths. The book, finally, has one underlying question: How might we better love one another?

Review Quotes

Artfully honest. Gay's poems are 'small lanterns' of 'lighting' and more.-- "Philadelphia Inquirer"

Blending classic craft with contemporary subject matter, poet Ross Gay's new collection packs a wallop in its urgency to communication the joys and sorows of life.-- "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"

Gay . . . can score a direct hit when he wants to. In Bringing the Shovel Down, he employs a variety of voices. The most effective of these . . . is the voice in which Gay shears off the 'poetic' trappings and just lets his language 'stutter and thrum," and he puts it in a poem called 'Say It.' Yes, you think: say it. He's at his best when he comes right out with it.-- "New York Times "

Gay's language and imagery are exquisite.-- "Synecdoche"

Ross Gay is some kind of brilliant latter-day troubadour whose poetry is shaped not only by yearning but also play and scrutiny, melancholy and intensity. I might be shocked by the bold, persistent love throughout Bringing the Shovel Down if I wasn't so wooed and transformed by it.-- "Terrance Hayes"

The language Gay brings to his poems is fresh and inviting. . . . One of the most satisfying new books I have read in a long time.-- "West Branch"

These poems speak out of a global consciousness as well as an individual wisdom that is bright with pity, terror, and rage, and which asks the reader to realize that she is not alone--that the grief he carries is not just his own. Gay is a poet of conscience, who echoes Tomas Transtromer's 'We do not surrender. But want peace.'-- "Jean Valentine"

With language wholly his own, sparkling clean and tender, Bringing the Shovel Down exposes a dark marriage of love and violence from which one cannot turn away.-- "ForeWord Magazine"

With masterful rhythms and multiple tones, Ross Gay gets down to bare-bones difficulty: love often tinged with grief, violence, and deception. He moves from macrocosm to microcosm, probing injustice's absurdities as well as a pining self that can't be pinned down. As with his 'little dreamer, little hard hat, little heartbeat, ' Gay's poems are vitalized by the poet's ache for compassion and truth.-- "Ira Sadoff"

About the Author

Ross Gay teaches poetry at Indiana University and is the author of the poetry collections Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens (with Aimee Nezhukumatathil), River (with Rose Wehrenberg), Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, and the essay collection The Book of Delights.